


Ya'Aburnee

by Angy98



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, Hawkmoth Nathalie, future Hawkmoth theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25094830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angy98/pseuds/Angy98
Summary: The world-famous fashion designer Gabriel Agreste is gone, his life taken away by his own wish. Nathalie, overwhelmed by grief, took his place as Hawkmoth to bring him back.Will she accomplish her plan to get once again her hands on Ladybug and Chat Noir's Miraculouses?(Part 2 of my fanfiction “On Butterflies and Heartbreak”)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	1. Papillon Monarque

Although he had found himself once again stuck with an ill-intentioned weilder, life with his new master was quite better than what Nooroo had anticipated.

The start, however, was something unbearably painful.  
He wasn’t ready - he could have never been ready - to live once again with a grieving holder. To be once again washed over day in and day out by continuous strikes of pain, and sadness, and hoplessness.

Kwamis generally weren’t much bothered by the lives of humans around them, and even the most caring ones like Tikki knew better than to get too attached to them and their lives; humans were temporary, and would stay with them for a short span of time.  
But Nooroo had barely come out of so many difficult years spent among the sorrows of a broken family, and was probably as tired to feel pain as Nathalie was.  
And so, when in the cold Parisian winter his master hid herself under the covers of her bed, crying, he cried with her, resting on her shoulder.

On her best days, Nathalie was still a caring soul.  
She would never admit it, but Nooroo knew she would always be a caring one, even when she was in pieces. It was woven in her soul.  
She was still willing to be there for Adrien, even if things had started to fall apart between them now that she knew that he was Chat Noir, and she demonstrated more than once how she surely cared about her kwami.  
“I know that, deep down, you’re still a good one.” Nooroo once told her, as he watched her pinning his brooch to her clothes. “Please, listen to your heart and reconsider!”  
Nathalie’s blue eyes met his. Her gaze was dull and faded, but it still showed how firm she was in her position. “I no longer have a heart to listen to” the woman replied shaking her head.

The new Hawkmoth - or _‘Papillon Monarque’_ , the queen of the butterflies, as she decided to call herself - was even more powerful than the previous one.  
Nathalie was more patient, more rational and schemy than Gabriel ever was. The woman only let out akumas when her target victim showed a certain level of negative emotions. Too low of a level, such as in kids, would lead to assured failures. Too high of a level, and the victim would lose sight of the mission to seek only their personal revenges.  
She had the Grimoire and the power-ups on her side, along with powerful, stable alliances with Lila Rossi and Felix.

But none of that meant that her quest for the Miraculouses would be any easier to achieve.

Working alone meant that she could never, ever, leave the lair; if she’d ever find herself cornered by the heroes, she wouldn’t have had someone to watch her back and rescue her.  
She had no one else to count on but herself.  
There was no partner in crime who could suggest her new plans, or calm her down and help her unwind after the most bitter defeats.  
There was no one with whom she could share the thrill of the action, and no one that could help her balancing her life as Nathalie and her life as Hawkmoth.  
To sum it up, she had no Nathalie to get her through her current life as Gabriel.

To direct Ladybug’s suspicions away from her, the woman akumatized herself, transforming into the powerful Coeur De Rage; a true force of nature meant to finally vent and let out years of built up anger and frustrations.  
Not too far from Catalyst’s exterior design - that now featured a red stripe on her suit running down along the entire left side of her body and through the symbol of a broken heart on her chest - Coeur De Rage could control water flows like Syren when she cried, and cause violent earthquakes when she screamed in anger.  
Than night, when Nathalie went back to her flat, once again defeated, the woman sat at her kitchen’s table and remained silent for a while, her face hidden in her hands.

Then, she got up and reached for her tablet, to add a new entry and some tactic notes to her catalogue of failed plans.  
Nooroo silently watched her jot down ideas for her future akumas, waiting.

The day would come, the kwami thought.  
One day another man would show up in her life, and she would fall for him like Gabriel fell for her.  
She would learn there was more to live for than just her Gabriel.  
That she deserved to be happy as well.  
That she could achieve such happiness both with someone else or by herself.

One day when he would be able tell her _‘told you so’_ before she would hand the magical brooch back to Ladybug, ready to move on for a fresh start.

That day would never come.


	2. Bunnyx

Bunnyx stepped out of her portal, emerging in the time she belonged to. Another akuma had just been defeated thanks to her help, and it was time for her to return her Miraculous to Ladybug.  
The girl closed her umbrella, placing it once again on her back, and walked up to Ladybug and Chat Noir, who’d been waiting for her return. “That was far too easy! See you around, Lady-“  
“Hey, you! Bunny girl!” A voice from above suddenly called, causing the three heroes to raise their heads to the sky in surprise. Standing tall on one of the nearby buildings was Papillon Monarque in person.  
“You must be the new Hawkmoth!” Ladybug exclaimed, spinning her yo-yo.  
“I was starting to think we would have the pleasure to meet you!” Chat Noir added, pulling out his staff. 

Papillon snorted out a laugh. “Relax, you little brats.” The woman took a leap down from the rooftop. Landing Gracefully, the masked villain walked towards the trio. “I’m here for _her_ ,” the woman said, pointing her cane towards Bunnyx.   
“May we have a few words?” Papillon Monarque asked to the red-haired, her dark-colored lips curving up in an innocent smile. Bunnyx stared for a couple seconds down to the purple gem of the cane, now pressed against her stomach, then raised her gaze to meet Hawkmoth’s.   
Without breaking eye contact, Bunnyx summoned her superpower, opening a portal next to her. With a nod, the girl gestured for the other woman to follow her inside the portal. Ladybug and Chat Noir were left alone, staring in confusion to each other as the portal vanished in a blink.

“Well?” Bunnyx crossed her arms over her chest.   
“I want you to take me to the past.” The woman in front of her answered matter-of-factly.  
“I don’t help supervillains, sorry.”  
“Of course you wouldn’t!” Papillon Monarque smiled once again. “But you want to defeat them, don’t you?”

Bunnyx let down her arms, sighing. She knew full well where the conversation would go. She saw herself in that position from one of the portals that led to the future, a long time ago, but she had hoped that that future would never become her timeline. “Look I-”  
“If you let me go to the past and stop Gabriel Agreste from making his wish, I wouldn’t take his place as the bad guy. And boom!” Papillon spread her arms. “You’ll have defeated me as Hawkmoth! Simple as that!”  
“I know what you want to do, Miss Sancoeur, but-”  
Papillon Monarque cut her short. “How do you know my real name?” The woman exclaimed in surprise.  
“-but I cannot let you do that!” Bunnyx patiently got back to her sentence.

The girl then proceeded to explaining to the other the basic rules of time-travelling, such as how she couldn’t just let anyone go back and fix their mistakes. Her Miraculous didn’t work like that.   
_Life_ didn’t work like that.  
And Bunnyx wasn’t going to make exceptions for anyone.

“Listen. I know it hurts like crazy, ” the girl’s voice now took softer, more sympathetic tones. “But if there is someone in this world who can understand just how much important it is to move on, that is you.”  
At those words, Papillon Monarque’s eyes flared up with anger. “I don’t need to move on. I need _him_. And nothing will make me change my mind!” The woman hissed.   
Then, realizing how angry she’d sounded, she took a deep breath and started a much calmer argumentation about her reasons to ask for Bunnyx’s help, along with the different benefits her plan would bring to everyone connected to Gabriel Agreste’s figure.  
She had to remain calm and diplomatic, if she wanted to have chances to persuade Bunnyx.  
And it was with calm and diplomacy that the woman moved past all of the young heroine’s counter-arguments. 

But Alix was having none of it.

The girl sighed, then abruptly walked around Papillon Monarque until she was behind the woman’s back, and pushed her out of the Burrow. The two of them were now in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by what looked like a rock desert.

“Hey, what-” The supervillain tried to protest, but was quickly cut short by Bunnyx. “Wait here.” The red-haired instructed firmly. “There are a few things I have to check.”

Without adding more, the bunny superhero called for a new Burrow and disappeared in her portal.

Bunnyx took a moment to stretch her arms, getting ready for the long hours of work she had just gotten herself into. What she’d just conceded to Papillon - her time and attention, not to mention an actual chance to accomplish her plan instead of a dry, simple ‘no’ - was so out of her character.  
Alix Kubdel listened to no one and nothing but her guts.  
Above all, she didn’t listen to supervillains that made an habit out of threatening innocent people.

But Alix had just done what she’d done precisely because she trusted her guts.  
Hawkmoth had brought up a very valid point. What if that timeline was actually going to hurt Ladybug and Chat Noir, on the long term?

Bunnyx had indeed a lot of things to check, among the endless number of portals all around her.   
First, she looked for the ones that led to the past. The young woman studied the recent history of the Agreste family, of Gabriel’s days as Hawkmoth, and looked for anything that could help her outline what his exact, even though complex, relationship with Miss Sancoeur was.  
Could the poor woman really get something good out of the time-travel she wanted to make?

Alix paused the last portal she needed to check for that matter, a wave symphatetic sadness making its way in her chest.   
There it was.   
She had found that _something_ she was looking for.  
Mr. Agreste apparently had indeed some sort of feelings for his assistant, he just never noticed them in time.

Then, Bunnyx examined the last few months of the life of Ladybug, Chat Noir and the other heroes.

Bunnyx had to admit that life hadn’t been all that easy for either of the major heroes; Nathalie had witnessed both Ladybug and Chat Noir detransforming, and knew both of their identities, but going directly after their civilian selves would have let them know the new Hawkmoth was someone who knew their secrets.  
There were only two people in the crypt under the mansion who could see them detransformed; Emilie Agreste or Nathalie.  
She would have exposed herself.  
And so, the woman had hired the closest people to both of the heroes - Lila, Marinette’s classmate, and Felix, Adrien’s cousin - to steal their magical jewels for her.

Ladybug and Chat Noir had always managed to foil Papillon’s plans so far, but through the portals that led her to the privacy of Marinette’s bedroom, Alix could see how the girl was growing increasingly tired of the stress she had to put up with. Lila was making her life impossible, turning her own friends against her, and more than one she had risked to lose the Miracle Box to akuma villains.  
She was scared to the point where she had started to look a possible substitute guardian to pass on the Miracle Box to.  
“How could I not see this...?” Alix hissed under her breath.

The future consequences of the choice Bunnyx had to take were the hardest thing to evaluate.  
The rabbit Miraculous gave Alix the incredibly precious power to check multiple possible futures at once, and her task as a superhero was to observe all of them, to then balance the pros and cons and guide Ladybug down the path that led to the best future.   
But it was almost God’s job, because there was no such thing as a timeline where everyone could be happy at the same time, and often the best path for Ladybug and Chat Noir was also one where someone around them would be unhappy.

All that she could do was relying on numbers and probability, along with a good dose of her famous gut decisions.

First, she tried to evaluate the paths where she refused to help miss Sancoeur.

Alix saw a large number of tragic outcomes.  
“ _Who would have thought about that?_ ”, Bunnyx thought with a grimace; that woman was so tunnel-visioned on her goal that the bunny superheroine couldn’t find a single path in which she would find someone to start over with.  
Nathalie had been a very lonely person ever since the times she was in high school. She had come to love way too much the peculiar daily life Gabriel dragged her into, to the point where she wouldn’t want to renounce it for anyone that wasn’t him.  
But, maybe, Bunnyx thought, it wasn’t that she didn’t _want_ to; maybe she didn’t know how to form new bonds from the ground up and re-adapt to a life that would inevitably be different from the only reality she’d known for all those years.  
She wanted what she once had, and nothing less.

There was a future where Papillon Monarque managed to drive Marinette to utter exasperation and, akumizing the girl in her worst moment, turn her against Adrien, hence getting her hands on both of their Miraculouses and the whole Miracle Box.   
From there, it branched between a scene of Nathalie simply making her wish to bring Gabriel back, and one where the woman lost her mind to the power given by all of the jewels in the Miracle Box and went down a path of world domination.  
Another future showed Ladybug and Chat Noir successfully defeating Papillon, retrieving the butterfly brooch from her. Nathalie, now powerless and alone, retired in what remained of her old self, living a gray, sad life made of never ending, empty days all similar to each other.

Bunnyx turned to another direction, to search for the possible future outcomes of letting Papillon Monarque time travel to the past.  
Many paths showed how the butterfly brooch would end up in Lila’s hands, making her the new threat.  
A few of them how things could still go terribly wrong in scenarios where Emilie and Nathalie coexisted in the same mansion.  
Some other endings, those that didn’t have Emilie in the picture, showed how both Adrien and Gabriel could benefit of the older Agreste’s decision to finally move on.

Alix huffed, rolling her head back.  
It was risky, very risky.  
It was stupid, and probably irrational.

But it was what she had to do.


	3. Gabriel

**_“We’re traveling,” Bunnyx announced as soon as she came out of the portal, not even a minute after the girl had dropped Nathalie in the middle of the desert. “But! There are a few conditions.” The superheroine warned; “First, I’ll keep an eye on you through the Burrow. If I see your plan generates a worse future for Paris and the heroes than the one we were already in, I’ll stop you from intervening at all. Got it?”  
Nathalie’s heart ached at Bunnyx’s demand; it meant that she could still be unable to save her beloved Gabriel, but half a chance was still infinitely better than nothing. “Got it.”_ **

**_“Second,” Bunnyx went on with a stern tone that wouldn’t allow a no for an answer. “You have to speak.”_ **

It took a couple of seconds for her eyes to adjust from the bright light of Bunnyx’s Burrow to the dim environment of the crypt under Agreste’s mansion.  
The first thing Nathalie saw was Gabriel about to put Chat Noir’s ring around his finger.  
 _Bunnyx had brought her back to bare moments before the whole dysaster!_

“STOP!!”

Her sudden shout made everyone in the room freeze on the spot, and suddenly all eyes were on her. Including _his_.  
The entire confident, powerful countenance she held as she stepped out of the portal – her head held up high and her steps slow and steady – dropped in the single moment her eyes met Gabriel’s.

“Stop!” Papillon Monarque repeated, walking fast towards a very confused Gabriel Agreste. “Don’t do this, please! Nothing good will come out of it!” The woman exclaimed in distress, grabbing him by his forearms to keep him from wearing the magic jewel.  
“Who _are_ you?” The man replied annoyed, trying to wriggle out of her grip “Get off me, you-”  
“Please!” Nathalie begged. Seeing her so anguished, Gabriel slowly gave in to the fight. “Put down those jewels and listen to me.”  
The two of them stared at each other fow a few seconds, Nathalie’s gloved hands still gripping, although way more gently, the other’s arms, still raised in mid air. “Please…!” The woman repeated, this time merely in a whisper.

Something finally seemed to click in Gabriel’s mind, as his eyes shifted from confusion to surprise. The man attemped a step towards her, and Papillon let go of his arms.  
“Wait, you’re…” Gabriel ran his fingers through the light purple strands in the woman’s hair, his hand trailing down to rest on her cheek. “...Nathalie?”  
Nathalie leaned into his touch, nodding in reply. “Yes.” Her gaze suddenly got brighter, and a smile made its way to her lips. “And you’re _here_!” 

It felt so incredibly _good_ to finally being able to feel his touch, after all those months when he’d been an incorporeal ghost haunting her mind and her heart.

Mr. Agreste frowned at her reply, quite confused by her words. “What– What do you mean, ‘here’?” He asked, sliding his hands down her arms, as if he’d just noticed the purple suit she was wearing. “Why are you wearing my Miraculous?”

Nathalie took a deep unsteady breath. “I come from the future, a future where you did bring Emilie back, but…”  
“But what?” Gabriel exhorted her to go on, and Nathalie could see him starting to feel uneasy.  
“The wish, it asked for an equal price, it had- it had to take someone away in exchange…” The woman took a pause, shaken. No matter how many times that scene played over and over in her mind troughout all those months – both in her nightmares and in her wake hours – it still hurt as if it had happened merely moments earlier.  
 _She could still see herself crying kneeled next to his body, her vision blurred by the heavy tears running down from her eyes._

Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. “It took _you_.”

Gabriel gasped at that revelation, and so did the Nathalie from the past.   
Ladybug, Marinette to say it more precisely, turned her head toward Adrien, who clearly would have never thought his father could be two minutes from dying nor, by the horrified look on the boy’s face, would have ever wanted for it to happen.

“I felt myself dying the very moment you collapsed down on the ground!” Papillon Monarque explained to Gabriel, her voice faltering. “I wanted to reverse the wish, but Ladybug refused to let anyone else combine her Miraculous with Chat Noir’s, and so I tried the only option I had left; I took your brooch.” She brought a hand up to her chest, resting it on the shiny dark purple surface of the jewel she was wearing.  
“I’ve been trying so hard to get my hands once again on those damned jewels. Eight months and eighty...four akumas! I fought, and I fought, and it was never working…” Her heart was racing accordingly with the flood of her thoughts. “And then I remembered there is a time-travelling Miraculous! I tracked down its holder and I managed to convince her to bring me back in time.”

“My dear…!” Gabriel pulled her in and wrapped her in a hug. “Shh…” The man tried to comfort his friend, rubbing a hand up and down her back.  
Nathalie calmed down in the safety of his arms. A first couple of tears slid down her cheeks as she leaned against him. “I felt so empty, without you…” The woman whispered, wrapping her arms weakly around his body.  
 _She felt so tired..._  
“Nothing else mattered, if you weren’t there with me! I-I missed your voice, your jokes, our plans…” The woman tensed up once again, as another wave of pain washed through her mind. “I-I couldn't live without you, I-”  
Nathalie pulled back from Gabriel’s embrace, to look him in his eyes.

**_“You have to speak.”_ **

“I swore to myself it would have been a secret I would have carried with me in my grave, but...” The woman huffed out a breath. “After everything that happened, I can’t take it anymore!”

 _It was now or never._  
The woman reached out once again for Gabriel, gently taking his hands in hers. “Gabriel, I love you. Just as greatly and deeply as you love Emilie.” The woman confessed, smiling through the new tears that were forming in her eyes.  
Mr. Agreste’s eyes widened in surprise, as Nathalie went on. “So many things have changed since she’s been gone, since you’ve become Hawkmoth. We got closer, I began to see sides of you that I’d never thought you had... and I came to realize it was more than simple admiration, what I felt for you.”

“Nathalie...” Gabriel was at a loss of words. He kept staring deep into her eyes, in disbelief. “I… I don’t know what to say...”  
“You don’t have to say anything!” The woman quicky reassured him. “I know that you don’t reciprocate me. I just needed you to know, before it’s going to be too late!”

“Why did you-” His gaze moved away from her face, searching for the same pair of blue eyes in the woman that stood a few meters behind. The Nathalie of his own timeline.  
 _His_ Nathalie, as he used to call her.  
“Why did you never say anything?”

“Because it would-” the two women started to talk simultaneously, until the one from the future stepped aside, letting her past self doing the talking.  
“It would have been pointless.” Nathalie shook her head in sad resignation. “You would have still wanted Emilie. She was your wife; it’s more than natural for you to want _her_!”  
Gabriel slowly walked towards her. His eyes reflected how lost he was feeling, like he was living a sort of unbelievable lucid dream.  
“All I ever wanted was for you to be happy!” The woman went on. “I’d give everything I have, and all of my strengths, to ease you from all the pain I’ve seen you feeling!”

Papillon Monarque could see in her past self’s eyes that she didn’t like to be ‘exposeded’ like that by herself.   
Hell, if she still remembered what she used to think and talk like…!  
But in all those dark, empty months she’d changed, and she no longer just wanted Gabriel to live, but to live _with her_. And if what Nooroo and Bunnyx told her about him was true, then speaking her mind could have been the only way to realize both objectives.

“I won’t-“ the past Nathalie sniffed, averting her gaze. “I won’t deny that ever more often I hoped that... I _wished_ that one day I would wake up and this would be all over. That you would say you’d stop your plans. That you would have picked _me_ , instead...” her voice faltered.  
“But Emilie seems to be the only one who could ever be enough, and I always told myself I would be fine with whatever ending, including if-“ the first tear ran down her cheek. “-If the only ending you want is the one where Emilie is at your side.”

Gabriel’s eyes were fixed on her, wider than she’d ever seen them, as his mouth tried to voice an answer to everything she’d just said.   
However, Nathalie didn’t give him the chance to. “But we’re _here_ , now! We have their Miraculouses! We’ll work out the wording of the wish we’ll make. We’ll find a way to let you, and her, and Adrien live once again together as a family. You can bring her back!”

For the longest time, Gabriel stood paralyzed, unable to tear his gaze away from the woman in front of him.  
Then, all of a sudden, he seemed to snap out of his trance. As he turned around, his eyes rested on the faces of each of the people in the room. 

He met Marinette’s bewildered wide eyes as the girl, scared, wondered what was about to happen.  
His gaze then crossed Adrien’s, and the boy’s face shifted from fear, to shock to disappointed in mere seconds. Lastly, Adrien tore his eyes away from his father’s, looking down to the ground next to him.  
Gabriel turned once again until he found Emilie’s delicate features, her green eyes still closed in her unperturbed sleep.

Eventually, as he went on down the cirlce around him, his eyes met Papillon Monarque’s. The latter stood still, almost holding her breath, waiting just like the others for him to do or say something.  
Lastly, he turned back to the Nathalie from his own timeline.

He looked so lost, right now, and Papillon Monarque could feel his rising confusion and dismay through the miraculous she was wearing; he felt cornered, suddenly suffocated by all those people around him. All of a sudden, he was realizing how far he’d gone – way too far in so many ways – and it was overwhelming him.

She knew that it was a ‘all or nothing’ kind of decision, and that he had to take it right there and then. Either he went on and carried out his plan, or he would have never had another chance to attempt it ever again.  
For a moment, Nathalie was scared that all of the strain she’d gone through to save him would be pointless. The success of her mission wasn’t up to Bunnyx anymore; it was up to _him_.

After what felt to be whole minutes, a feeble whisper eventually escaped his lips. “No.”   
“What?” the past Nathalie asked, taken aback from Gabriel’s statement.  
“I said _no_ ”

Hearing those words, those few small words that meant a world of change, Papillon Monarque drew a breath in. Her mind didn’t fully realize what had just happened, until she felt her legs give in under her.  
The woman stumbled and fell on her knees. Looking down to her right leg, she found out a good half of it was vanishing into thin air.

 _It worked._  
She had rewritten the past! She had saved the love of her life from his cruel fate!

Paying no attention to the worried gazes she’d attracted on herself, Papillon Monarque smiled wide, sighing exhausted as one of her arms vanished as well.   
A tear of relief rolled down her masked cheek right before she disappeared entirely, knowing that all of the pain she had endured was vanishing along with her body.


End file.
